Verisimilitude
by Meridas
Summary: In a conflict of faith and memory, Captain Jack Harkness discovers that something has infiltrated the Torchwood team and altered the memories which define them.
1. Part One: Faith

_Major spoiler alert for season 2, episode 5. Familiarity with the episode is assumed — this is intended to expand upon and fill in gaps in the story, not reiterate it in its entirety. This fic will follow the episode 'Adam' from Jack's perspective, beginning just after Adam implants the false memories in Ianto's mind. It all belongs to BBC and RTD; I just wanted to get into Jack's character some more. Cheers._

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**_ver·i·si·mil·i·tude: n (formal): the appearance of being true or real; something that only appears to be true or real_**

The Hub was mostly dark, painted with ghostly shadows from the sleeping computers. Jack strode toward his office, uneager to linger here when he had enough ghosts in his own head.

"Jack…"

For a moment he froze. He whirled around, then let out a relieved sigh. "Ianto," he half-laughed, chiding himself for being paranoid, jumping at shadows. He forced himself to relax as he descended the stairs again. But Ianto didn't meet him, just sat there leaning back against the metal railing behind his workstation.

"Hey," Jack began, concern creeping up on him again. Ianto looked almost sick. "What's wrong?"

For a moment the young man didn't respond. Then he looked up at Jack and his blank expression crumbled. "You have to put me in the vaults," he said — his voice level and calm, except that he sounded hoarse, like he'd been crying, was trying now not to break down. "Lock me up." Jack stared at him, uncomprehending, and then Ianto dropped a bombshell. "I killed three girls." He sniffed a little. "Strangled them."

This would be freaking Jack out even if he weren't already on a hair trigger. "Stop kidding around," he said seriously.

Ianto looked up at him, eyes glittering strangely with the reflections in the Hub. "I'm serious. I murdered them in cold blood." He sounded calm, almost detached now, and Jack could only stare at him, lost. "I took their bodies… and…"

Suddenly he shot to his feet, jerking and looking around wildly. Jack instinctively took a step back, watching him warily. _Okay,_ he thought grimly. _Definitely something wrong here… other than the obvious. _It had to be some kind of outside influence making Ianto say he'd killed someone. Maybe something he'd uncovered in the Archives?

The young man was staring at Jack again, seeing him and trembling. "You have to lock me away," he ordered. His gaze flicked away from Jack. "Before I turn on you…" he started to brush past Jack, heading for the hallway to the vaults. "None of your are safe!"

Jack sprang after him. "Hey." He grabbed onto Ianto's arm. "Hey! Come here!" Ianto struggled with him, forcing Jack to grab his shoulders tightly. "_Come here!_" he almost shouted, holding fast. Ianto stopped struggling and just looked at him, his whole body shaking under Jack's hands. "What's happened to you?" Jack asked gently, searching Ianto's face up close now. He saw no deception there — only desperate guilt and helpless fear and vulnerability. Some of that same fear ran cold fingers down Jack's spine, and he drew Ianto into his arms. _Something is so wrong here,_ he thought, cupping the back of Ianto's head in an instinctively protective gesture. He ran his fingers through the young man's dark hair in tiny, soothing movements, but the tension in the body against his didn't ease. Instead he felt Ianto shudder against him, and then his lips brushed Jack's ear.

"I'm a monster."

Jack held them very still for a moment. Only when he felt a cold teardrop slide down his neck did he pull back, grasping Ianto's arms. "No," he said firmly. "No, you are not. Ianto, look at me," he ordered. He waited until blue eyes met blue. "_You are not_," he insisted, giving Ianto a little shake to emphasize his words. He let go of the young man's arms and rested his hands on his shoulders.

"But I remember it," Ianto insisted, dropping his eyes from Jack's. His fingers tugged gently at the edges of Jack's greatcoat.

"Hey." Jack pulled him closer again. "This can't be true. Come on, I'll prove it."

He pulled Ianto along into his office and sat him down in the chair in front of Jack's desk. He gave his shoulder one more reassuring squeeze before he crossed the room and opened up the safe.

"Aha," he muttered to himself, pulling out a black case stamped with both the Torchwood and UNIT logos.

"What is that?" Ianto asked quietly as Jack rolled up his sleeves to place sensors inside his arms.

Jack looked up at his lover. "Hey." He reached up to place his hands on either side of Ianto's face. Ianto met his gaze, biting anxiously on his lower lip. "Do you trust me?" Jack asked softly, teasing his lip free of his teeth. "Ianto, I wouldn't hurt you, I swear." He ran one hand over Ianto's hair, slightly reassured when Ianto leaned into his touch. "This is not a mind probe or anything that will cause you pain, I promise. I'm just going to need you to talk — just tell me the full story, that's all." He leaned forward and dropped a small kiss on the tip of Ianto's nose. "You okay with this?"

Ianto gave a shallow nod. "I—I trust you," he murmured.

Jack kissed him again, briefly. "Okay." He stood and stepped back behind his desk. "Best lie detector on the planet," he explained as he assembled it. "If something's untrue, the light turns red." A green glow lit up the machine. Jack looked across at Ianto. "Go."

For a moment Ianto just stared at the machine, starting to breathe harder. "My hands…" he began haltingly, "around her throat…" Jack frowned at the green light. _C'mon, turn red. That can't be true. _He glanced up in time to see an unrecognizable expression distort Ianto's features. "It felt so good," he hissed to Jack's alarm. "Squeezing the life out of her…"

The green light reflected off of his face. Jack pressed his fingers hard against his mouth.

"It reads as truth," Ianto pointed out shakily, in a very different voice.

Jack looked up at him. "I don't believe it," he replied fiercely, holding Ianto's eyes so that neither of them would keep looking at the damning green light. _It isn't true. It's just taking the machine a while to warm up — it's been in storage for how many years? _"Okay," Jack said firmly, "tell me about the second girl."

Ianto dropped his gaze from Jack's staring at the lie-detector again, still flashing bright green. He whimpered softly. "She tried to get away," he said, his voice breaking as a tear spilled onto his cheek. Then his fingers clenched and his voice changed again, dropping to a deeper register which frightened Jack. _This can't be happening. _"But I was too quick," Ianto hissed viciously. "Pleading… and I—" his voice broke again, another tear sliding free. "I didn't care!" He shuddered violently, his eyes fixed miserably on the green light. "Something in me wants to kill…"

That was enough for Jack. "No," he denied, shaking his head. "This is not you." He knew Ianto Jones — knew him better than anyone else, and there was nothing in this man that would lead him to kill someone innocent, someone he risked his life every single day to protect from the Rift. That was not the Ianto Jack knew and… and worked with, and laughed with, and confided in, and _yes, _damn it, loved. This wasn't him, and Jack knew that. Little green light be damned, he knew Ianto Jones.

Abruptly he pulled the plug on the lie detector and stood up. "Something's changed you," he declared, striding around his desk. "You're not a murderer — I'm certain of it!"

Jack squeezed Ianto's shoulder as he passed, heading for the computers — only to be brought up short by a quiet, "How can you be so sure?"

Jack turned back. Ianto had folded over on himself, hiding his face in his hands. Jack knelt in front of him and grasped his wrists gently. "Because I know you," he said firmly. "And because this is the first you've spoken of it. When do you remember killing those girls? Was it tonight?"

Ianto shook his head slowly, dazedly. "No… um… I'm not sure…"

"See?" Jack persisted. He placed his hands around Ianto's face. "When has your memory let you down like that?" Ianto didn't look convinced, and Jack pressed a kiss to his forehead. "And because you are not that kind of person," he insisted in a low voice. "Ianto, think about this — you just started remembering this tonight, and you came and told me. This is something you can't live with. You would not have done it."

Ianto was still shaking, and Jack stroked his hair tenderly. "I do not believe that you could murder someone in cold blood," he stated, willing his confidence into his young lover. "And I think that something has gone wrong—" he shook his head and stood, tilting Ianto's face up to maintain eye contact. "Something's going wrong with our memories: Gwen forgetting Rhys, memories I buried long ago, false memories that you never made…" He pulled Ianto to his feet, looking grim. "Something's sabotaging us, and it must have started…" he paced back toward the computers, pulling up the internal CCTV. "I don't know. But we can start with what happened to you between when I dropped you off and when I got back," he muttered, mostly to himself. He scrolled through the work hours, selecting the timestamp marked just hour earlier.

"_All human record is a lie," _Adam's voice burst from the speakers, silky sweet and calm. The shaky images resolved into two figures in the darkened Hub, one scrambling frantically away from the other. _"You crave flesh,"_ Adam insisted. He lunged forward, his fingers grasping at Ianto's face. _"Remember this!"_

Jack watched, horrified, as Ianto screamed. Adam's fingers dug into his skin, pressing painfully as he hissed, _"remember it!"_

Jack remembered. He remembered Adam's hand reaching for his shoulder just an hour ago, his voice saying in confusion "Well I came with you, Jack, remember?" And then he had.

Other timestamps, from earlier in the day, back through Adam touching Toshiko, seeing them kiss — when had _that _happened? — seeing Gwen arrive late in the morning, seeing the smile fall from her face — _"who the hell is this?" _— until Adam touched her shoulder, and then she grinned and they hugged, and then Gwen had forgotten she had a boyfriend…

_Remember — remember — remember —_

Jack whirled toward Ianto. "C'mere," he said, grasping Ianto's wrist when the younger man protested. "Come _here_," Jack repeated, pulling Ianto in front of the computers. "Just look. _Look_," he insisted, pointing toward the first video, from an hour ago: Adam's fingers digging into Ianto's temples, Ianto shaking and screaming. He was shaking again, now. Jack smoothed his hands over the young man's shoulders, a strange feeling bubbling up in him. Still confused, but now they were getting somewhere. Ianto's first thoughts on those supposed murders had appeared just after Adam had… what? What the hell was Adam doing?

"_Remember it — remember it — remember it!"_

Jack hit the keyboard to shut him up. "You didn't do anything," he exclaimed triumphantly. "Something's wrong here, and Adam's the key. What the hell is going on?"

Ianto took in a shuddering breath. "Jack…" he turned and met the Captain's eyes. "How can Adam be doing that? Messing with memories… and why now, after all this time? D'you think he's possessed or something?"

Jack stared at him. "All this time," he repeated slowly. He shook his head. "No… Gwen said it this morning. I'm starting to think that I can't trust any of my memories of Adam… all three years' worth of them." He looked down at the desk, frowning at the items. A couple books, some pens, a few small artifacts and trinkets. Nothing struck him as Adam's. He let go of Ianto and crossed to Gwen's station. She always kept pictures of the team in the clutter around her… yet he couldn't see a redhead.

"Where's Adam in the pictures?" Jack called back to Ianto. "He's not in any of them, not a single one."

"So he… takes them, doesn't he?" Ianto answered distractedly.

"Or he's never been here before," Jack growled. "Two days ago we logged a Rift spike, but nothing was reported to have come through. What if something did — but we ended up thinking it's been here for a long time?" Another idea struck him, and he raced down the steps into Owen's work area. He yanked open the fridge and pulled out a container of dark red vials. He held it up and scanned the names. _Sato, Toshiko; Harper, Owen; Cooper, Gwen; Ianto Jones — that must be one that Owen labeled himself instead of having Ianto do them — except Owen's always so precise, so neat — except that's so unlike Owen…_

He shook it off as something else weird. "Where's Adam's blood sample?" he called up to Ianto. He took one more look before he set it aside and bounded back up the stairs to Ianto. He was buzzing, excited and _furious_, absolutely livid that someone was messing with his mind, with his team, with Ianto — but part of him still insisted that Adam was a teammate, that Jack had recruited him three years ago.

That part was rapidly growing quieter and weaker, though.

Ianto pulled up Adam's personnel file on the computer. It, at least, looked the same as everyone else's, but…

"Everything's in order here," Ianto pointed out.

"When was it last updated?" Jack countered.

"Uh…" Ianto tapped a few keys, then froze. "Twenty-four hours ago."

Jack drew in a deep breath — and then the cog wheel door rolled back with all its fanfare. Hurriedly Ianto cleared the computer screen and stood up — Jack grabbed the nearest book and opened it to a random page. He looked up in time to see Owen peering at the two of them from behind an enormous bouquet of white flowers.

Ianto turned to look at Jack, his eyes startled and confused. Jack met his gaze for a second before the archivist turned and hurried away. Owen set the flowers on Tosh's desk and went down into his bay without meeting Jack's eyes. For a moment the Captain stood there, an unknown book in his hand. The buzz of adrenaline hadn't left him, but he stood still for a moment, breathing deeply. It was later than he'd realized. The rest of the team would be in soon… including Adam, whatever that meant.

The door rolled back again, allowing Toshiko and the redhead to enter together. Jack retreated to his office, where he watched Owen approach Toshiko over the flowers. Though he couldn't hear, the conversation seemed awkward, but sincere; it ended with Owen's shoulders slumping dejectedly when Tosh turned away from him, sticking the card rather carelessly back into the huge bouquet of flowers.

_Wrong. Somehow, something about that is wrong._

Jack crossed his arms, watching through narrowed eyes as his team gathered around Gwen, asking about Rhys, about her memories. Jack pressed his fist against his lips, staring at them. Memory was the key to this whole thing. Somehow, their memories had been tampered with—

_Not somehow_, Jack reminded himself sharply. _Someone. _He narrowed his eyes at the redhead in the middle of the team hug. Touching Tosh and Owen and Gwen. Ianto skirted around them, eyes flicking briefly toward Jack. The CCTV from last night had showed Adam, his fingers digging painfully into Ianto's skin, touching him as Ianto screamed…

Jack closed his eyes, picturing his team. Owen and Toshiko — two brilliant, shattered people Jack had saved, had gathered to him and practically adopted. He saw the shy glances between them, wished that they would find a little bit of happiness in each other, knew that they could if they would just see...

Gwen — Gwen Cooper, what an incredible stroke of luck for Torchwood. Jack almost smiled, knowing that it had been stubbornness, not luck — that utter implacability sometimes clashed with his own, but he loved her fire, her determination to succeed and protect people, her sheer will forcing things to be right.

And Ianto… well, Ianto was special. Irreplaceable, no matter what he assumed. Broken in a way that had always called out to Jack, and still strong and beautiful despite — or maybe because of it. Oddly enough, it had taken Ianto's betrayal — that whole awful business with Lisa — to make Jack see that the young man had the most incredible capacity for loyalty and love that Jack had ever come across. Jack had spent a lot of time trying to be worthy of it.

Then he came to Adam. Adam was there, in his memories, three years worth of memories. Jack could remember recruiting Adam from the government, because he was wasted there — he could remember training him, becoming friends with him. He remembered introducing Adam to Tosh and Owen, remembered having him show Ianto around the Archives, pairing him up with Gwen on so many missions because they made a great team…

He remembered all of these things. But he didn't feel a single one of them.

His memories of Adam weren't steeped in emotion they way the rest of them were. He _felt _so much pride, so much love, when he thought of his people: his Toshiko, Owen, Ianto, Gwen. They had their faults — they all had faults, Jack included, and they were as dysfunctional as any family sometimes, but they were his family, and he'd protect them at any cost.

Even from their own memories.

_ ~to be continued~_

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_The episode 'Adam' has always been one of my personal favorites. The characters become absolutely fascinating. Unfortunately, what with the whole Retcon thing, it's rather difficult to write a reaction piece. (Though not impossible: if anyone's interested, toddle over to Archive of Our Own or livejournal and look for the fic 'Amerauder' by thraceadams. Absolutely amazing.) Since I see nothing at all wrong with the episode except that it's only fifty minutes long, I wanted to just do a gap-filler beginning with the really angsty stuff. I was absolutely floored and very touched by Jack's total faith in Ianto in this episode, and I also loved the insight into all the characters. Plus, I felt like getting back into Jack's headspace after what feels like an age away from fanfiction. _

_The final result is somewhere around 10,000 words — it'll be posted as I go along tweaking and finishing. Please feel free to review or PM me anything you have to say about it - even if you disagree about my interpretation, don't worry and leave a guest review. I won't bite - I'd genuinely like to discuss other peoples' views on the subject. For now, I just hope someone enjoys reading this as much as I did writing it. Cheers, all. Good luck reading and writing!_


	2. Part Two: Shatter

**_ver·i·si·mil·i·tude: n (formal): the appearance of being true or real; something that only appears to be true or real_**

Jack opened his eyes.

He saw Adam reach for Ianto's shoulder, saw the younger man jerk away. _Good, _Jack thought. _Don't let him touch you. _

Adam studied Ianto for a moment; then Jack heard him say, "Listen, I could murder a coffee," all nonchalance and normality, but how the hell had Jack been missing that look in his eyes these past two days? A look of calculation, of malicious satisfaction. Oh, it was well hidden. It was small. So small that Jack could have written it off as his own imagination, if Ianto hadn't turned around and sought Jack's gaze. And _him, _Jack knew him so well, well enough to know how much it took to visibly upset Ianto.

He had no idea what Adam's breaking point was. No idea, now that he thought about it, what any of his mannerisms meant. Hell, off the top of his head, he couldn't even think of any quirks that made Adam unique. They were there if he scanned his memories, if he thought hard about it — but they weren't instinctive. He didn't have the knowledge of Adam that he should have of someone he'd known and cared about for three years.

Ianto hesitated between Jack's office and his own workstation. Adam sat himself comfortably in his chair without a care in the world.

_To hell with waiting._

Jack was there when Adam leaned back in his chair. The cock of his gun sounded loud and abrupt as it cut through the everyday sounds of the Hub.

"Talk to me, Adam," Jack began mildly. "If that's even your name."

The redhead spun around slowly. For a second he just looked at Jack as if he'd gone mad. "What?" he asked, half laughing in disbelief.

Gwen approached him, also chuckling nervously as if she hoped this might be a joke, not the boss going nuts. "What the hell are you doing, Jack?"

"He's not who you think he is," Jack proclaimed. "He's been feeding himself into our memories by touch."

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Toshiko suggested.

"He didn't exist until two days ago!" Jack continued insistently. He could feel the team behind him, though he didn't take his eyes off Adam. He trusted Ianto was there to keep an eye on them — on his real team.

"Look — could somebody tell me what's going on here, please?" Adam blustered, looked toward the others.

"Jack," Owen tried next, "we've known him for years, he is part of the team."

"No," Jack insisted. "He just made you think that." It wouldn't be that simple to convince them. They all had memories of him, and human beings trusted what they remembered, simple as that. Whatever kind of creature Adam really was, he'd had the most perfect con ever just getting started. Only then he'd had to go and mess with one of the very select few people in the universe Jack trusted even more than himself.

"Come on, Jack," Adam wheedled, looking concerned as he reached a hand toward him.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Jack warned him off, his finger tightening on the trigger. He glared down at Adam and the hand retreated. "You don't get to me like that."

Adam sat back slowly. "Jack, you know me, you recruited me three years ago!"

"All I know is that when I think of my team I see you there, but I don't feel anything for you," Jack snapped back. "No pride, no warmth. You, the one who I can confide in," he added, almost snarling now. His trigger finger itched. "The one who _unburied the dead!_"

"Jack," Gwen tried to step in again. "Maybe you've just forgotten him, like I did with Rhys, yeah?"

"Oh, I should've spotted it then," Jack responded, refusing to look away from the threat. "That wasn't stress, it was _him_," he explained. "By making us think we know him, he disturbs our real memories."

Adam forced out another disbelieving laugh. "I have no idea what you're talking about—"

Enough was enough. He wasn't about to convince them just standing here with Adam at gunpoint. Without warning Jack seized the front of the other man's shirt and dragged him to his feet. "I'm taking him to the vault," he snarled, pushing Adam away.

"Jack, this is ridiculous—"

"Move!"

Finally Adam stopped protesting, and allowed Jack to lead him on, still at gunpoint. They'd barely taken five steps when the team's shocked silence was broken by the loud cock of an semi-automatic handgun.

"No!" Toshiko shouted. Tosh was pointing her gun at him, pointing it wildly at her teammates as they tried to placate her. _Tosh._ He might not put that past Owen, or even Gwen, but _not Tosh._

"Toshiko," Jack said calmly, "I'm just gonna lock him up."

The weapon was shaking in her hand. "Let him go," she demanded.

"I'm not gonna harm him," Jack assured her, keeping the raging desire to do just that out of his voice.

"Why should I believe you?" Tosh wailed, her eyes desperately darting between Jack and Adam. Jack kept his eyes firmly on her and the gun; over her shoulder, Ianto edged forward.

"Tosh," Owen pleaded, "Tosh, we can talk about this—"

"Drop the gun, Jack!" she shouted — and Ianto lunged forward, grabbing her hand and forcing the weapon towards the ground in one movement. Even after Gwen darted forward and seized it from her hand, Tosh shrieked and fought against Ianto's restraint, though she was vastly outmatched.

"This is what you've done to us," Jack snarled at Adam. He shoved him none too gently toward the lower levels. "Move!"

He could heard Toshiko crying after Adam until the door slammed shut behind him.

Adam went calmly into the cell, still acting as though he could talk the Captain round from his sudden delusion. Jack closed the door between them and locked it down, seething. He turned on Adam. "What the hell have you done to my team?"

"Jack, please listen to me," Adam said calmly. "Just calm down, alright? Whatever's happened to you, we can fix it."

"Uh-huh." Jack advanced on the cage. "Like you've _fixed _Toshiko so that she'll hurt Owen and point a gun at me? Like you've _fixed _him so that he's vulnerable and pining? Like you _fixed _Gwen so that she doesn't know Rhys, doesn't know anything outside of Torchwood, like you _fixed _me so that I'm crippled by these memories I tried so hard to let go of—"

He cut himself off, biting his tongue. Adam was staring at him as if he were mad. "Jack," he said softly. "Why don't you let Owen look at you? If something's wrong—"

"Something's wrong with all of us," Jack snapped abruptly. "And I don't need Owen to point me to the cause." He took a deep breath, taking a step back from the thick glass. He shoved his hands into his pockets. "What are you?" Jack asked, beginning again, quiet and controlled this time.

The redheaded man just stood there, outwardly calm, as if he could still convince Jack that he was human. "What do you want me to say, Jack? You know who I am. What makes you think I'm not human?"

"You look the part, I'll give you that," Jack replied. "But what you do has been banned on behalf of every sentient species across seventeen galaxies for millennia! No human being can mess with people's memories like you did, let alone in this century. Humans won't even be mildly telepathic for another few hundred years." He let his hand fall to his gun again. "So. Tell me what you are."

Adam flickered. There was no other term for it — his hand, his arm, flickered like a bad connection before he frowned and stabilized. He looked up, to find Jack looking back at him with grim triumph. He sighed. "What gave it away?" he asked conversationally, slumping against a wall.

Jack raised his chin. "What did you do to Ianto?" he answered with another question.

"Oh." Adam gave a funny little laugh. "Nothing, at first. Really. I just gave him the same memories of me as everyone else. He didn't seem important."

Jack couldn't help cocking an eyebrow. "Don't feel too bad," he said condescendingly. "Most people make that mistake."

Adam shrugged. "Yep. He's too smart for his own good, you know. If he'd left me alone, I wouldn't have had to threaten him — fill his mind up with… distractions."

Cold rage flashed through Jack, and he advanced on the cell again. "That's what you call that? _Distractions?" _he spat._ "_You _raped _him! You violated his mind!"

Adam looked up at Jack, his eyes suddenly alight. "Yeah. And I'd forgotten how good that tastes."

Jack stared at him, cold and disgusted, and tried not to shake or draw his gun. "You were only focused on yourself," he told Adam through cold lips. "That's where you made a mistake. You didn't pay attention to how well we know each other — how much we care about each other. You may be able to plant memories, but you can't give me those feelings for you that I have for them. You could never convince me that my team are not good people at heart."

"You almost believed it, though," Adam ventured, a familiar half-smile on his face. "Come on, Jack, give me that. He's betrayed you before, I know he has. Just for a second, didn't you think—"

"Not for one second," Jack said flatly. "The Ianto Jones I know would never do something like that. And if you can change the rest of us, change who we are — then I'm going to stop you and whatever you did before it hurts him."

Adam lurched forward and threw himself against the glass. "Don't kill me!" he begged suddenly. "I had to become part of your memories in order to survive! I didn't mean any harm!"

Well, that was a turnabout from the creature who had gotten off on hurting Ianto last night. "You changed us," Jack retorted coldly.

"For the better," Adam insisted. "You didn't remember who you were. I helped you. Look at Owen," he added desperately, "all his cynicism gone. He's a different man now: selfless, happier. And Toshiko, too — she's never been this confident."

Jack's restless circling brought him right up to the reinforced plastic barrier between himself and the creature. "How did you come here?" he demanded, almost a growl. "Why us?"

Adam gazed at him hungrily. "All of you," he breathed, "have such unique memories… especially you, Jack. All those extraordinary memories you hold — some hidden, some absent. You singular mind… that's what drew me here."

Jack leaned in close to the glass, resting his hand on it in a mirror to Adam's grasping scratches — close enough to taunt, not to touch. And he smiled. "Good job," he praised sarcastically. "That's what we do best…" he grinned, and whispered conspiratorially: "wipe out aliens."

Suddenly Adam's face contorted in fury. "You can't shoot me!" he shouted into Jack's face. The Captain dropped his hand from the glass and turned away from the creature. "You made me live!" A pause, and Jack was nearly at the door. Then the voice turned vicious. "And you always remember what you killed!" Adam shouted after him. "Don't you, _Jack_?"

Those words hit closer to home than Jack liked to admit, and for the first time he felt a tiny worm of doubt. Was he really right to do this — it wasn't just a personal vendetta, was it? Jack had always been sensitive about his memories, ever since he'd lost two years; especially now, after so long, when his memories of home were buried so deeply he'd all but lost them…

But this wasn't about Jack. That was the point. It couldn't be. Adam had shown last night that he was dangerous. He couldn't be set loose on the world, especially in such a powerful position as Torchwood. There was no safe way to keep him alive — and after what he'd seen on the CCTV, there was no way Jack would risk sending him back through the Rift to end up finding another sentient species to prey on. Killing him would be the only way to eliminate the threat and save his team.

He left the vaults without looking back. There were a few things he needed before this gamble could start.

…

Jack strode across the main floor of the Hub. "I need to talk with everyone in the boardroom," he announced.

"What about Adam?" Toshiko demanded.

"He's perfectly fine, for now," Jack sighed. "Tosh. Please. Hear me out."

As his team headed downstairs with varying degrees of reluctance, Jack reached out and snagged Ianto by the sleeve. "Hey," he said quietly, "wait a sec."

The young man turned toward him. "Are you going to be able to stop him?" he asked Jack, his voice low and admirably steady.

Jack turned Ianto's hand over and held it firmly in both of his. "We've gotta kill him," Jack acknowledged regretfully. "It's too dangerous to assume that he'll never be able to touch anyone again."

Ianto shivered slightly, his fingers tightening marginally around Jack's. "And… the memories that he created…"

"I think I can make those disappear, too," Jack assured him. He took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "Ianto, do you trust me?"

Ianto blinked. "Always."

Jack almost smiled, but couldn't quite muster one. Instead he pressed a grateful kiss to Ianto's fingers. "Good. Because I have five tablets of forty-eight-hour Retcon."

Ianto's eyebrows rose. "Will that work?"

"I'm fairly sure," Jack responded. "Every memory we have of Adam — every memory he's forced on us — has been made in the last two days, even though it feels like longer. The Retcon will wipe them all out."

He hesitated slightly, but then reached into his pocket. He pulled out the note he'd written, and placed it in Ianto's palm. "Just in case, though…"

Curious, Ianto turned his hand gently out of Jack's grasp; with a glance at his lover, he unfolded it and read the few simple words printed there. Jack recalled them perfectly, having agonized over the right wording, the right message, without any possible triggers or misunderstandings. What he'd finally settled on was innocuous enough, and was perfectly true no matter what the circumstances.

_I believe in you._

"Thank you," Ianto whispered fervently. "Thank you, Jack."

"Hey." Jack pulled him close, wrapping protective arms around the young man. "I'm gonna fix this, I promise. Whatever Adam's done, I'm not gonna let it hurt you." He stroked Ianto's hair gently for a moment. Then he kissed his temple and pulled back. "Okay?"

Ianto nodded firmly. "Do you need me to do anything?"

"Just trust me." Jack ran his thumb briefly over one sculpted cheekbone. "And go down there and keep the others calm. Pull up the CCTV footage of me and Adam in the vaults — I think even Tosh will find it hard to deny that. I'll be there in just a minute."

The young man nodded again; then, impulsively, he leaned in and kissed Jack firmly. Then he disentangled himself from the Captain and headed for the stairs to the boardroom.

Jack watched him go, then heaved a sigh once the door had closed behind him. He'd managed to sound certain in explaining his plan to Ianto. Truthfully, he wasn't totally sure it would work. He wished that he had time to do some digging, some research into memory, Torchwood's experiments with the amnesia drug, and alien memory tampering. He didn't even know what Adam was — besides insidious and dangerous. But he couldn't afford to wait to find out. He had to operate on his theory that Adam was just memories created in the last forty-eight hours of their lives, and that he could therefore be erased right alongside the rest of the two days Jack was aiming to wipe out.

As Jack slipped the five tablets of Retcon into his pocket, he tried to pretend he wasn't taking a personal, vengeful pleasure in wiping Adam and his memories out of existence.

* * *

_Author's Note: Big thank-you shoutout to PadawannaB, SarahCat1717, and Village-Mystic for reviewing part 1 - and to everybody who's following, I hope you're enjoying the story. Looks like there'll be four parts to this - and maybe an epilogue, but I haven't worked that out yet. In the meantime, thanks for reading! Hope you like it. Feel free to let me know what you think ;)_


	3. Part Three: Rediscovery

**_ver·i·si·mil·i·tude: n (formal): the appearance of being true or real; something that only appears to be true or real_**

He'd expected instant attack upon entering the boardroom. Instead, there was silence. The team sat around the table, looking up at him without saying a word; the screen on the back wall still displayed live CCTV footage of Adam's cell, but the sound had been turned off.

Jack paced around the table, closer to the screen. Every few seconds Adam would glance up at the camera as if he knew they were watching. For a moment he just watched the screen, unable to stop small doubts from needling his mind. Then he turned around, and his eyes found Ianto. The young man looked back at him with enough faith for the both of them, and worlds beside. _I believe in you. _It went both ways, and he was counting on Jack to fix this.

"Our memories define us," the Captain began firmly, breaking the silence. "Adam changed those memories… changed who we are. Now I have to help you all go back. Find a memory that defines you," he explained, circling back to the head of the table. "Rediscover who you are." He leaned against the table, feeling his team's eyes upon him even as he watched the redheaded creature pace in his cell. "If I'm wrong," he added quietly, "he'll still be here when we've done this."

He hit the center controls, shutting off the feed to Adam's cell and setting the shifting, mesmerizing blue lights floating across the screen. Hypnosis had once been one of the most benign tools in his repertoire — this wouldn't even be the first time he'd used it on fellow members of Torchwood. But it was the first time he'd been this anxious, this invested in its outcome. It was the only way he could think of to completely undo what Adam had done. They had to not only forget, but believe.

"Let me take you back to before we all met," Jack murmured. He hit the controls again, dimming the lights in the room. "Feel around for anything that makes you who you are," he instructed, keeping his voice quiet and encouraging. "The hidden and the forgotten." He waited a moment; none of them were looking at him now, all of them into the middle distance in front of them. So far, so good. "Tell me where you are," Jack whispered.

After a long moment, Gwen spoke first. "The college canteen," she murmured. "Rhys is sitting opposite me…" then she giggled slightly, her face lighting up. Jack smiled.

"I'm ten." He looked over at Owen. The medic's face was blank — then he frowned. "But I love you, because you're my son," he said, as if puzzled, as if working over someone else's words. Jack's smile had faded. Not all of these wonderful, incredible people had been made by happy, glowing moments.

Toshiko smiled, though, as she murmured, "Something so reliable about maths." But her momentary look of contentment faded quickly, her dark eyes looking far, far back into the surety and loneliness of her numbers.

Jack looked down to his right, to Ianto, just in time to catch the smallest flash of a youthful, white grin. "Falling in love," he murmured, almost too quiet to catch. "Never felt so alive." Jack looked down at the table, feeling an ache that he tried to push away. As glad as he was that Ianto had that memory, that smile… he knew it wasn't for him. And that hurt him more than it should.

Owen scoffed under his breath, drawing Jack's gaze again. His lips curled in the scathing, defensive 'go to hell' sneer Jack was starting to remember. "That is the nicest thing you've done for me in years, Mother," he declared to someone out of sight.

Family — or lack thereof. Owen had never been able to trust the people who should have always been there for him. That cynicism, that hard outer shell of sharp wit and acid tongue, had developed far too early. No changing it now — it was intrinsically Owen.

Toshiko's small smile came and then disappeared again. "I don't have a flat-warming," she muttered, her voice gone flat with old bitterness, loneliness and the acceptance of it. She stared down at the table, her lips pressed together in disappointment at herself and humanity.

"Like the world had ended," Ianto whispered beside him, and Jack's heart almost broke — because he knew that tone, knew it all too well from a month of visits to a dark, quiet flat where the curtains were drawn and the pictures put away. Ianto Jones hid his heart more than anyone his age should ever know how to — but that didn't stop him loving, wholly and helplessly, and it hadn't stopped him dying a little bit when he'd lost it. Didn't stop him breaking in a way Jack himself was altogether too familiar with.

Across the table, Gwen had remembered. "I love him," she proclaimed softly… then she looked up at Jack, a dazed look in her reflective eyes. "But not in the way I love you," she added.

There was nothing Jack could say to that — except, "take this," as he held out a small white pill toward her. _Not in that way, Gwen,_ he kept to himself, even as a little twinge of could-have-been still ached. _Not for either of us._

To her credit, Gwen didn't hesitate as she took the Retcon from his hand. He brushed her hair back as he passed, as she clenched her fist around the pill.

Tear tracks glistened across Tosh's face in the blue lights. "Knowing I'm special," she almost sobbed, except that his Toshiko was far too strong to let that escape. "Waiting for someone to see it…"

Jack set a hand on her trembling shoulder. She looked up at him, searching desperately, as lost as the day he'd found her. He smiled at her, at his real memories of her, her intelligence and her quiet strength. "I saw it," he assured her, willing her to remember, to let go of Adam and remember what was real — and that he saw her.

"You save one life," Owen was muttering to himself, his voice suddenly less biting, more vulnerable. "A hundred lives, but it-it's never enough… Who'll save me?" The broken faith in his voice went back, so many years, even before he'd joined Torchwood. Owen's faith in himself, his talent, his profession and the oaths he'd taken had been crumbling long before Jack found him — but his skill itself never faltered. Jack had shown him that once: given the chance, he'd do it again.

"I will," he promised Owen. He resisted the sudden urge to rumple his medic's carefully combed hair, and simply set the Retcon pill down on the table in front of him. Owen blinked rapidly without looking at Jack; and the Captain moved to the last member of his broken team.

"Coming here," Ianto murmured, "it gave me meaning again…" he paused, deep in thought — then he turned, seeking Jack's gaze. "You," he said so simply, so innocently, clarity and trust and love shining from those blue eyes. It ached again, more than he cared to admit. But this… this was kind of a good ache.

He smoothed his hand gently over Ianto's hair, resting his fingers at his nape as he pressed a simple, soft kiss to his young lover's forehead. Without moving away from Ianto, he set the amnesia pill down in front of him; lingering, he trailed his fingers over the sensitive skin of Ianto's throat, pausing to feel the strong pulse under his fingertips. Ianto's eyes opened slowly, both of them familiar with the caress, one of Jack's almost compulsory unconscious habits. As much as Jack wanted to stay here, to hold onto his lover and feel that they were both safe and content, and maybe even have the balls and the brains to let the last walls down inside his heart and let himself feel truly happy…

Not now.

Reluctantly he stepped away from Ianto, back to the head of the table. "You each have a short-term amnesia pill. It'll make you forget Adam," he explained. "We have to wipe out the last forty-eight hours from our memories. Go back to who we were."

Ianto was the first to place the pill on his tongue, washing it down without hesitation. Gwen followed suit, her movements deft and sure even as she looked up at Jack once more.

Toshiko and Owen hesitated. They exchanged a look across the table; then Owen picked up his pill and dry-swallowed it. He took off his reading glasses and set them aside, with a tiny smile at Tosh. Then he put his head down on his hands to wait.

Abruptly Tosh stood up — she grabbed the remote control and switched the TV screen back to the real-time of Adam frantically pacing his cell. "I'm going to lose so much," she murmured as Jack approached her.

"None of it was real," he told her, firmly even though he regretted it. She deserved real love. As brilliant as she was, she didn't deserve a life in which she'd never known the real thing.

"He loved me," she squeaked breathlessly. She whirled to Jack. "And I loved him," she insisted desperately. "It's no different from real memory!" Her voice broke, even as Jack knew she wanted him to say she was right — she wanted to convince both of them. She wanted her Captain to tell her it was okay to be in love.

And no one understood that better than he did. No one wished more at that moment that Adam could be real, could give Tosh everything she deserved and everything she wanted. But he couldn't.

"He forced it on you," Jack reminded her, remaining firm. Tosh looked down; he tilted her chin back up to him. "You have to let it go," he insisted. Then he let his hands fall, let her turn and look at the screen showing the alien they were killing, the appearance of a man she thought she loved.

Finally Jack closed her hand around the Retcon, and she let herself be sat down. She swallowed the pill, painfully, tears streaming down her face. "Goodbye, Adam," she whispered, then rested her head on the table.

…

Making evidence disappear from around the Hub was easy enough. Adam didn't have any material possessions to incinerate. There was the matter of going through everyone's desks to make sure he hadn't left any papers, notes, or little mementoes in the past two days, which Jack felt a little twinge of guilt over — but he figured that he'd forget it ever happened in the morning, so really, no invasion of privacy there. He checked Ianto's diary as well, having found it left abandoned on the floor. There was only one reference to Adam, which Jack promptly tore out — but in the name of thoroughness, he did flick through a bit more. Several interesting notes caught his eye, leaving a small smile on his lips. Trust Ianto. Feeling lighter and a little mischievous, he left the diary in his office, instead of putting it back in Ianto's drawer. A little present for himself, as a reward for a memory job well done… on himself.

Having purged the Hub of physical evidence, Jack set to work on the computers. Mainframe contained a long-standing corruption protocol, in case Torchwood was in imminent danger of being taken over by hostiles who should never get the information stored in their databases. It was simple enough to rewrite part of that protocol, destroying only the last forty-eight hours. While the program ran its course, Jack tied up the last loose end — Rhys Williams turned out to be surprisingly cooperative about taking a smaller dose of Retcon. Of course, that may have had to do with Jack's very serious threat of keeping Gwen quarantined in the Hub until her fiancé acquiesced.

Finally, the Captain approached Adam's cell once more. The redheaded alien no longer fought and yelled — he just sat there, staring at the floor.

"Just me left," the Captain said mildly.

Adam raised his head, exhausted and afraid. "Jack, I know what it's like not to exist," he revealed hollowly. "Please, don't send me back there."

"I have to," Jack replied calmly.

Adam raised his head out of his hands again. "What are you gonna do?"

In answer, Jack held up his last Retcon pill between his fingers. "This will wipe out the last two days," he explained.

The angry helplessness on Adam's face confirmed his theory once and for all. "But you'll still keep the bad memories," Adam said bitterly, "because they were all yours."

Jack had no rebuttal to that. Losing his father, losing Gray, watching his mother step further away from him day by day until he simply felt too alone to stay in that ghost of a home for another second… those were all his memories. Those were the moments that had started defining him.

Adam rose to his feet, leaning against the glass partition. "What about the good times, Jack?" he prodded. "What about the last good memory of you and your dad?"

That stung. "It's lost," Jack snapped coldly. Lost long ago, when he'd tried to block them out because they hurt. He hadn't expected to live long enough to ever want them back so very badly.

"I can help you find it," Adam overrode him. Jack stared at him. "I can take you back there," the redhead continued. "Before I die."

Jack tried to scoff, tried to look away from him — but Adam was dying, and there was nothing he could gain. And there was a longing in Jack which he'd been shoving away for decades. All this time, and he still hadn't found any trace of his little brother. Still hadn't laid those ghosts to rest.

"Why would you do that?" he heard himself asking Adam. His voice felt shaky. All of him felt shaky, all of a sudden. He'd always been touchy about his memories, ever since those two years had been taken from him. What else had he lost over time? What if he could finally get something back?

"I was in the Void for so long," Adam murmured. "The colors of this world nearly _blinded _me, Jack." Adam pressed his hands to the glass, caught between a smile and tears. "It was so beautiful after the darkness and the stench of fear. You gave me that," he insisted, staring up at Jack. "Let me do this for you."

Jack glanced toward the doorway again. The main Hub was visible — just beyond that, he'd left his team, his friends and his lover, asleep in the boardroom. He'd taken care of everything to finish off this intruder.

"Come on," Adam wheedled. "You want this," he added quietly.

It was his memory. He was in control. Adam was only a tool here. Jack closed his eyes.

* * *

_Author's Note: Thanks to the lovely Village-Mystic and BelladonasMom for reviewing last chapter. Just one more part to go in this piece, unless I still end up with that epilogue. Haven't decided on it, yet. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy it._


	4. Part Four: Rememory

_****__ver·i·si·mil·i·tude: n (formal): the appearance of being true or real; something that only appears to be true or real_

_It's early evening. Just him and Dad. The sand is its familiar texture, both soft and rough on his skin as he slides across it, laughing. "You're out!" he cries triumphantly. They're both still laughing as he stands, and Dad sits down with a thump, tired but grinning. _

"_You know," Dad says wryly, "one day you're not gonna want to play with your old dad anymore."_

"_Never," he denies instantly._

"_Dad!" A high-pitched voice cuts easily through the endless wind across the beach. "Mum said I could play, too!"_

_He grins. Gray's stride across the shifting sand is still ungainly — but then, he can still remember when Gray was just barely walking upright across the firm surfaces in the compound. But graceless or not, Gray's still the best thing that happened to their family in a while. _

_Together they start one last round of their game. The ball flies hard and fast out of sight — he runs after it, charges up the small sandy dune and reveling in the last of the sun._

_But he doesn't get there first. Some other boy's there. He doesn't know the other one._

"_Who're you?" he asks, direct but not impolite._

"_My name's Adam," the other boy replies. "Can I play?"_

_Chills creep over him, and not because of the wind. He frowns._

"_Let me play," Adam insists. "Before it gets dark. There's lots of room."_

_The chills become an inexplicable anger. Adam can't play. This is his place. Adam shouldn't be here. So he pushes Adam to the ground._

"_Hey!" Dad's voice calls down. "What're you doing?"_

_Dad and Gray come down the dune. Dad gives him a stern look before helping Adam to stand. "Are you alright?"_

"_I just want to play," Adam repeats._

"_He can play," Dad agrees immediately._

"_No," he protests. "No, he doesn't belong here." Is he the only one who knows that? "I don't want him playing with us."_

"_I'm Adam," Adam says, reaching out to shake Dad's hand._

_He hits the hand away. "Don't touch my Dad," he snaps._

"_Hey!" Dad's voice raises. "Are you alright, Adam?"_

"_Yeah," Adam replies. "He just doesn't want to share."_

_Damn right he doesn't! Adam doesn't even belong here! _

"_Right," Dad says to him. "Well, if you're behave that way we're going home."_

"_What?" he gasps. "No…"_

_No, they don't leave yet. They play some more — it gets dark. They light a fire. Mum joins them…_

_But Dad and Gray are leaving and expecting him to follow, even though this is wrong._

_He whirls on Adam. "You did this," he accuses. "You spoiled it."_

"_I made it happen," Adam says._

_And it's too late._

Jack gasped, eyes opening to soiled concrete and dirty glass. He hadn't realized he was leaning on it as if he couldn't support himself. Inside his head was a maelstrom, his thoughts and memories fighting for what he wanted, what he remembered, what he believed. "I want the real memory back," he pleaded brokenly. Adam could do that. He didn't need this shadow. He could have what was real.

"Then let me live," Adam commanded. He stood back from the glass, staring at Jack with lively, hungry eyes. "That box you found," he explained, "contains my last good memory of you, your dad, and Gray. You see I'm a part of it now," he added darkly. "And I'll always live as long as you remember it."

Hot fury rushed to fill the hollows in Jack's heart. "That's why you took me back?" he spat at the creature.

"Wasn't it lovely?" Adam grinned at him. "Playing in the sand, no one knowing what was ahead? Your dad laughing, Gray safe and happy…"

It was lovely. It was what he'd wanted, wasn't it? One perfect day with his family, one moment of bliss he could hold up to fight against those days when the darkness and the screams of the nightmares haunted him insistently…

Except… it wasn't his. Adam had given him a perfect ghost. This alien creature could make fantasies as real as life, and he'd made one out of Jack's hidden childhood and kept it as an ace up his sleeve. Jack could keep a beautiful lie — he could even forget that it was a lie, if he let Adam touch him. He could change the past, make it better, prettier, happier…

_Meeting someone who would change everything._

_Standing alone against the world._

_The wonder and the heartache of falling in love._

_Waiting for someone to understand._

His team had remembered, for him, for themselves, even though it hurt so much. He had to do the same.

_Losing everything dear in the sand._

Memories thick with fear, with bitterness, with nerves, with pain, with ash and desperation.

These were the moments which made them.

Their memories defined them. All of them. He had to go back to who he really was.

He had to let it go.

Jack's heart fought him for every inch — but still he slipped his hand into his pocket, and held up the white amnesia pill for Adam to see.

"I don't want to die!" Adam shouted at him. "You take that pill," he threatened, "and you will lose everything I've given you! Wipe me out now, and you will lose all your memories of your father. He will cease to have existed for you!" he shouted.

Jack rolled the pill between his fingers… but he already knew. "Goodbye, Adam," he said clearly. _Bye, Dad; bye, Gray. I love you._

Then he put the Retcon in his mouth and bit down on it.

Adam shrieked as the bitter taste and heady wooziness flooded Jack's senses. He leaned heavily against the wall, watching the alien creature writhe, and felt detached. Already he felt sleepy, tired beyond imagination. The cell in front of him was empty now… surely it was okay to sit here for a minute, close his eyes…

_It wasn't like this. But it's too late now. The sun on the sand is gone._


	5. Epilogue: Leave Well Alone

_****__ver·i·si·mil·i·tude: n (formal): the appearance of being true or real; something that only appears to be true or real_

He woke up the worst kind of uncomfortable. And, given that he was fully clothed and unfortunately alone, he could assume right away that last night hadn't been much fun.

With a groan, Jack levered himself to his feet. His head pounded unpleasantly. _Christ, it isn't somebody's birthday, is it? _He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten so hammered he blacked out. Probably not since his total bender in 1869, in fact.

Wondering how his team was faring, Jack made his way up out of the vaults. By the time he reached the Hub proper, his body seemed back to normal — but still he had no idea what had placed him by the Weevil cages in the first place.

The Hub looked normal for the middle of a busy workday: Tosh, Owen, and Gwen at computers, while Ianto's deft hands appeared to be at work with the infernal coffee machine. Nothing out of the ordinary…

"Jack," Gwen began when she caught sight of him, "how have we lost two days?"

_Two days? _"What do you mean?" Jack demanded.

"Lost forty-eight hours," Ianto confirmed. He set a white mug down at Gwen's hand. "None of us can remember a thing."

It wasn't just him, then. The entire team had… what, exactly? _Two whole days?_

"The system's blank," Tosh reported, sounding puzzled and mildly irritated. "the CCTV's been wiped… what's been going on?" She looked over at Jack. "What've we been doing?"

He wished he could come up with an answer for her, but… nothing. Total blank. Not even hazy images or thoughts… just nothing. Except…

Jack glanced again at Tosh's computer screen. A corrupted file was on display — nothing visible anymore except vague colors and what appeared to be red hair.

_Leave well alone._

Jack took a deep breath, recognizing the trick. It was one thing he must have thought, over and over, as his memory was wiped: an old trick to leave yourself a message. It wasn't enough to trip any further memories, just those words: leave well alone.

"I don't know," he answered Tosh, his voice firm. He didn't know, and he wasn't in a hurry to find out.

As Ianto passed, Jack automatically reached for his blue-striped coffee cup. He looked down at it, and suddenly smiled. In the midst of the team's complete memory breakdown, with no recollection of forty-eight hours and no clues as to what the hell might have happened… Ianto fell back on the basics. Jack inhaled the familiar, soothing scent, ignoring Owen's grousing as he glanced around the Hub.

"Looks like Toshiko got herself a secret admirer," he remarked, gesturing at the enormous spray of white and green decorating the technician's desk. Tosh did a slight double-take, as if she honestly hadn't noticed them. Jack smiled a little. Straight to the computers, Tosh.

"Oh, yeah?" Owen asked, mildly curious.

Tosh poked about, coming up with a small white card. _"'To Tosh,'" _she read aloud. _"'Love and apologies… Owen.'" _She looked up at him, a wide smile blooming across her face. "They're from you!"

Owen snorted with laughter. "In your dreams, Tosh," he chuckled, doing up his jacket and missing the way her face fell. "I think someone's winding you up, darling. No, I don't do flowers," he claimed, reaching for the note. "And I definitely don't do apologies," he added. Jack rolled his eyes at them, and left them to it.

He found Ianto on the upper levels, methodically checking things over in the greenhouse lab. He waited on the catwalk, looking out over the Hub. Everything seemed fine to him. World was still there. His phone wasn't ringing wildly, so he assumed that there wasn't a current apocalypse. His team seemed fine: confused, but physically and mentally sound — down in the medical bay, Owen's equipment flashed and hummed as various tests ran with blood samples and the Hub's internal body scans. Everyone was functioning normally even with the memory tampering. So, unless something changed drastically in the next few hours, Jack intended to leave well alone.

Jack looked over to find Ianto leaning on the railing next to him. "Something a bit odd," the young man murmured. He held up a slip of paper with a single handwritten line on it. "I found this in my pocket."

Frowning slightly, Jack read over the few words printed in his own hand. "Huh," he said helplessly. He frowned a little deeper, and ran a speculative — and purely concerned — look over his archivist. "I hope you weren't alone in a dangerous situation…"

Ianto shrugged and pocketed the note. "Well, if I was, I seem to have gotten out of it just fine." He smiled. "Maybe I got to be James Bond for two days. A mission so secret, I had to Retcon everyone afterward."

Jack chuckled and nudged the younger man's shoulder. "I like to think I'd know better than to indulge your spy fantasies."

One perfectly arched eyebrow rose. Jack wondered, not for the first time and not without delight, how one incremental movement could be so downright filthy.

Before the conversation could go any further, Owen called to them across the Hub. His lab results were in, and they had all the answer they needed: Retcon. All but Jack had traces of the amnesia drug in their blood — Owen insisted on checking Jack's blood sample, too, and Jack allowed a needle to be stuck in his arm for the sake of thoroughness. Obviously, they couldn't remember if they'd taken the drug themselves or been forced too. However, the medical tests were as far as Jack was willing to investigate. He shut down Tosh's attempted recovery program, and made Gwen promise not to try to pump information out of Rhys when she got home.

"Leave well alone," he told them firmly.

Retreating to his office, Jack immediately found a small book bound in dark green leather sitting on his desk. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. Sometime during the two missing days, Ianto's diary had been left on his desk. Jack glanced furtively out the window. The archivist seemed engrossed in Tosh's computer screens, helping her cross-reference what little hard data they had to make sure nothing dangerous had come through the Rift when they couldn't remember it. With a grin, Jack sat down behind his desk and applied himself to the day's project.

By early evening, Jack announced that the work day could end for Torchwood. Nothing else had cropped up in their timid investigations, so they dropped it completely. The only other item of interest Jack found in his office was a strangely carved box, inside a plastic evidence bag. It hadn't been labeled dangerous — in fact the sticker claimed it was just a wooden box — so Jack took it out, weighing it in his hands. It felt a little too heavy to be ordinary wood, but maybe it was just dense.

Something clattered to the floor. Jack looked down, then bent to retrieve the little piece of hard wood which had fallen from the bag. It was intricately, painstakingly carved, in a similar shape to the carvings on the box…

Soft leather shoes scuffed the floor, and Jack looked around. "Did you, um, call?" Ianto asked. He'd put his suit jacket back on, preparing to leave for the night.

Ah, yes. Jack smiled slightly and held up the leather journal. "Found your diary," he remarked mildly.

"Yeah, been looking for that," Ianto replied in clipped tones, stepping forward to reach for it. Jack knew it wasn't nice to just hold it there, letting his smile grow, but… well, Ianto was damn cute when he blushed. Jack grinned when the young man snatched the book from Jack's hands and spun around quickly to leave the room.

"And, for the record?" Jack couldn't resist teasing. Ianto stopped. Jack grinned. "Measuring tapes _never _lie," he said in a knowing voice. Quick footsteps just barely masked the sound of a whispered curse.

Jack chuckled softly, looking back down at the desk. Something caught his eye, and he hollered for Ianto again.

Instantly the dark head popped back around Jack's door, though he knew he was just waiting for the opportunity to actually escape. Jack made it quick, and held up the plastic evidence bag the box had rested in.

"Who's Adam?"

"Don't know," Ianto replied decisively, gave him a little smile, and skedaddled.

"Hm," Jack murmured. He let the bag — labeled "Adam's Property" across the top in Sharpie — fold itself in half, and then set it aside. Once again he picked up the box and the loose piece, bemused. He spotted a carving on the box which looked like an exact match to the one in his hand — sure enough, it slotted right it like a 3-D puzzle.

And nothing happened.

Jack waited for a moment, expectant. Then, with a disappointed sigh, he set it on his desk and started toward his office door to catch Ianto.

A slight hydraulic hiss made him turn around. Wood, in his experience, did not make that noise on its own.

The box had split and slid open, revealing another carved wooden rectangle. Jack was reminded of those little nesting dolls, except that the top of this interior box was open.

Jack picked up the container, somewhat more carefully than he had before — but nothing alarming happened. There seemed to be something inside it, but he couldn't see for the shadows in the container. He tipped it over, let the contents run out over his hand.

Sand. Soft and cool and yellow, with the silky sting of tiny granules across his skin. Jack found himself frowning at the sand as it pooled in his palm and trickled through his fingers.

An inexplicable shiver crawled up his spine, like that old saying… as if someone had walked over the grave he'd never have. The sand felt familiar somehow…

Could just be all the sand he'd felt over the years. It had been a lot, after all. Lots of memories associated with sand… he'd grown up with it, back on the Peninsula. He'd died an awful lot on it, during the wars, at Normandy…

Lots of memories.

Jack brushed the sand off his fingers; leaving it in a pile on his desk, he strolled out of his office. "So, that whole diary thing doesn't automatically rescind my invitation, does it?" he called to Ianto.

The young man shot him an exasperated glance as he pulled his coat on. "If I said yes, would it teach you a lesson about snooping where your presence is _not_, in fact, desired at any time?"

Jack pouted a little. "It was just sitting on my desk," he protested. "For all I knew, it was something I'd written to myself about the missing two days."

Ianto snorted. "More like something you left for yourself to find after you wiped your own memory."

Jack shrugged, not bothering to deny that possibility. "So…"

Ianto straightened the collar of his coat, checked the pockets for his keys, and raised one eyebrow at Jack before striding purposefully through the cog door.

Taking the eyebrow for what it was, Jack grabbed his coat and ran after Ianto with a grin.

_~fin~_

* * *

_Author's Note: yep, that's all! I had fun with this, so I'm happy that a few people seemed to like reading it. Thanks again to you lovely people who reviewed. See ya next time._


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